


The Town--Mandy

by wheel_pen



Series: Lennox and Cassia [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Town (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cosmic Partners (wheel_pen), F/M, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 08:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7750621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lennox is Jem Coughlin—bank robber and obnoxious trouble-maker, but also surprisingly good with his girlfriend’s kids, one of whom is autistic. Cassia is Mandy Newbury, the single-mom waitress who has recently moved to Charlestown to be with Lennox, though they both have to keep playing their parts for others. Just a couple of scenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Town--Mandy

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

 

The diner was sleepy this time of the evening, mostly slumming college students consuming large quantities of coffee and greasy eggs, and a few folks who liked their suppers late and cheap. Doug slid into the booth across from Jem with a curious expression. “So this is where you’ve been hanging out, huh?” he joked, looking around. “Cozy.”

Jem snorted and pushed his plate closer. “Try some fries,” he advised. “They’re almost as good as Kelly’s.”

“I won’t tell him you said that,” Doug promised, grabbing some of the fries. They were cooling now, but seemed high in potential.

“And I don’t _hang out_ here,” Jem corrected, a touch self-conscious. “I’m just waitin’ to give Mandy a ride home.”

Doug nodded seriously. “When does she get off work?”

“Eleven.”

“So, three hours,” Doug calculated, trying to keep a straight face. “Did you bring a book, or…?”

Jem smirked in acknowledgment and Doug grinned. “Well, maybe I do hang out a _little_ ,” Jem allowed. “Normally I just come by to pick her up, but tonight is special.”

“Aww,” Doug teased, though he was genuinely pleased to be meeting the woman who had so captivated his friend. “I’ll try not to scare her off,” he promised.

Jem didn’t rise to that bait, though. “Nah, I don’t think you could,” he claimed, and Doug’s eyebrows rose slightly.

“You really gettin’ serious about her?” he asked in a low tone, and Jem shrugged a little, not meeting his eye. The lack of fervent denial was a pretty strong statement from Jem, who had never had a steady girlfriend as long as Doug had known him. Of course he’d lost a big chunk of dating years in Walpole, but since getting out it’d been a string of casual hook-ups only. Some of their friends were starting to settle down a bit now—for better or worse—but Doug never would’ve predicted Jem would be one to get bit.

“Oh, sorry,” said a voice behind him, and both men straightened up as the woman approached. “We just had a little grease fire in the kitchen so everything’s a mess.” Doug tried not to stare at her rudely but felt his astonishment must be visible to his friend at least. The woman was petite and blond, with classic curves and a heart-shaped face, a husky voice and piercing blue eyes that seemed to know exactly what Doug was thinking. The only thing that made her seem slightly realistic for Jem was a hint of world-weariness in her expression.

“This is my friend, Doug,” Jem introduced, trying not to sound smug at the look on his friend’s face. “This is Mandy.”

“Nice to meet you,” Mandy asserted, holding out her hand. Doug felt like he should stand to shake it but the booth made that awkward, plus now Jem was outright smirking at him.

“Nice to meet you, too,” he replied. “This lug over here won’t stop talkin’ about you,” he added, watching Jem’s grin morph into a glare with satisfaction.

“I was about to say that to you,” Mandy replied, pleasantly dry, and Jem rolled his eyes. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Just coffee.”

“You want anything to eat?” she asked professionally. “Well, I would stick with cold things for the moment, until they clean up the kitchen,” she added.

“Nah, coffee’s fine,” Doug assured her.

“Okay. You need anything?” she asked Jem.

Their eyes met and they shared a little smile, as if acknowledging that what he _needed_ wasn’t on the menu, but they were past the point where they had to say that kind of thing out loud, especially in front of other people. “I’m good,” he assured her.

“Okay.” She turned to leave and Doug discreetly watched, half admiring the view and half thinking about the connection he’d witnessed. If this ‘serious’ business kept up, he might find himself out a roommate, permanently.

Jem watched her until she disappeared from view, then turned back to find Doug looking at him. “What?”

Doug decided to stick with the less emotionally-charged sentiments. “She is f-----g _hot_ ,” he assessed, leaning forward and keeping his voice down.

Jem let out a gleeful cackle. “I _know_ , man! I _told_ you.”

They broke apart abruptly as Mandy returned with Doug’s coffee, trying to look innocent, but she shook her head with a knowing smirk before leaving.

“Yeah, but I figured—you know, there’s hot and then there’s _hot_ ,” Doug explained, knowing Jem understood his meaning and delighted in it. “She’s too good for you,” he scoffed, as friends did. “Why’s she with you and not, like, Brad Pitt or something?” Jem was unoffended by this judgment. “She’s older than I was expecting, though,” Doug added, carefully.

“What? She’s not _old_ ,” Jem protested immediately. She was more than a handful of years younger than him.

“No, I know, just—usually you’re knockin’ around with kids, I figured she’d be one of them,” Doug clarified. “I mean, I’m _relieved_ she’s not, like, twenty-two or something.”

“She’s got two kids,” Jem reminded him.

“Yeah, who need car seats,” Doug shot back. Discovering those contraptions anchored so cozily in the back of his friend’s car had been slightly life-altering.

Jem dismissed this. “They put _really_ old kids in car seats now,” he complained. “Abby’s _nine_ and she’s gotta sit in that booster thing.”

“How the f—k did we survive?” Doug asked rhetorically. “At nine we were sittin’ on your dad’s lap, helpin’ him steer!”

“Nah, that was at six,” Jem corrected jovially. “At nine we were stealing the car to drive around the block! At least with _you_ , ‘cause you could reach the pedals _and_ see over the dashboard.”

“Kind of,” Doug clarified and they both laughed.

“G-d, that’d be like a f-----g felony now,” Jem sighed.

“So you like the kids, too, huh?” Doug pressed, trying to sound casual.

“Yeah, they’re good kids,” Jem claimed, not sounding at all self-conscious. “They’re really smart. The homework they got now? D—n, I wouldn’t have passed second grade.”

“You barely did anyway,” Doug teased. He leaned forward again. “I dunno, man, you’re waitin’ to give her a ride home, helpin’ the kids with their homework… Starting to sound kind of domesticated there.” He said this in a fond tone, indicating it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Domesticated, huh?” Jem smirked. “Yeah, let’s you and me go out back, I’ll show you how domesticated I am.” The threat itself was not serious, of course; but in no way would Doug want to test him. Jem had always been a scrappy, vicious fighter who held respect for the law pretty far down on his list of priorities. Doug didn’t see that changing any time soon. As if to emphasize this Jem lowered his voice and asked, “You check out the truck on the next thing?”

Doug glanced around to make sure no one was nearby, attempting to look casual. “Could be complications,” he muttered. They were not actually going to discuss the details of their next heist here in the middle of the diner, at least Doug hoped not. With all the vagaries and euphemisms they’d have to use they would get hopelessly confused.

“Florist is gettin’ antsy,” Jem warned.

“We don’t work for the f-----g Florist,” Doug hissed at him in a low voice, angrily. “We do our thing and we give him his piece, but he don’t give us orders.”

Jem shrugged a little. He started to say something, then Mandy appeared to refill their coffee and check on them. After she left he just shook his head when Doug looked at him expectantly. Jem did not respond well to authority just because it was there, that was an understatement. But if he thought someone _deserved_ his respect, he’d be the most loyal dog in the pack, and the Florist had won him over since before Jem had even been a teenager, when his father was pulling jobs for him (and gotten shanked in prison for his troubles).

It was one thing to give Fergie his cut of any job pulled in the area—that was professional, not to mention pragmatic. But Jem delivered it happily, and lived on the faint praise he was given. Doug, ironically, was of a more independent nature—he did all his own research and stakeout for jobs, acquired all his own equipment, coordinated everything. Well, with his crew, of course. If the Florist came through with a big job while things were quiet, fine, but each was a one-time-only affair with the terms worked out in advance.

Doug’s father had done jobs for Fergie, too, and had spent almost Doug’s entire life in prison for it. Other guys in the neighborhood, they talked about how much they admired “Big Mac” for refusing to rat out anyone, landing himself forty to life; Doug would rather have had a father growing up. Which didn’t mean he’d stayed away from crime himself, of course; just that he was going to play it _his_ way, beholden to no one, taking no one else’s orders.

They talked about safer topics then, like their friends and their (legitimate) work, and who had left that particularly disturbing porn movie in their DVD after their last barbecue, and whether or not Jem was eating a disproportionate amount of their favorite deli pickles lately. It was, really, a _little_ domesticated already, in a suitably macho way.

Jem turned his head toward the kitchen suddenly, as though listening to something, and Doug craned his neck to see Mandy around the corner, talking on her cell phone. He’d been admiring the way she hustled around the diner, never stopping for a minute, so he doubted the call was something trivial; and indeed she looked a little upset.

“Anything wrong?” Doug asked. Jem went to see for himself.

Mandy was speaking into the phone in Spanish as he approached and he quickly got the gist of it. Mrs. Mercato, the neighbor who babysat her kids, was having trouble with one of them and wanted Mandy to come home and deal with it. Which was of course impossible.

Strike that. Nothing was impossible, not for them. At least nothing they had ever found, and they’d been trying things for a long time. But they both understood the need to play their parts. And Jem knew that Mandy’s boss wouldn’t let her off early tonight, not without unpleasantness, anyway, even if he _was_ her uncle. Jem thought she could’ve picked a more lenient guy to make her uncle—she’d had her choice, when she was planning her move here from North Dakota, and she went with a stingy b-----d.

“Hey,” he said, trying to get her attention. Mrs. Mercato was yammering into the phone. “I’ll go over and watch ‘em.”

Mandy pressed the phone against her chest. He envied it. “Really?” She seemed grateful, and slightly surprised, but not at all worried about his competence. Maybe she should’ve been; Jem Coughlin was not babysitter material. Lennox wouldn’t let anything happen to the kids she’d chosen, though, even if he had to bend his role a little to make sure of it. He liked the challenge of fitting the two together, of stretching Jem to make him fit Mandy’s needs.

“Yeah, tell her I’m comin’ over,” he insisted. “You can get home okay?” She smiled at him and nodded, conveying to Mrs. Mercato that help was on the way—Mandy the waitress shouldn’t walk home alone at night in this neighborhood, but Cassia could without fear. That wasn’t playing their roles, either; but what was the fun in being who they were, if they _never_ took advantage of it?

Jem gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, then went back to his table. He didn’t sit down but rather pulled out cash to cover his bill—with a generous tip, of course—and Doug looked up at him questioningly.

“What’s up, man?”

“Eh, problem with the sitter, I’m gonna go watch the kids for her,” Jem replied nonchalantly.

Doug’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head; they’d been doing that a lot this evening. “You’re gonna babysit?” he asked faintly. He wasn’t sure if this was a joke, or merely a terrible idea.

Jem seemed mildly offended by his lack of faith. “Yeah, man, the kids know me, it’s only for a couple hours. They’re supposed to be in bed soon anyway.” He grinned cheekily. “You wanna come?”

“What?” Doug sputtered.

“Yeah, come on,” Jem insisted, clearly delighted with this plan now that he’d thought of it. “Come and meet the kids, then you can leave if you get bored. Sounds like you won’t be seein’ them at their best, though,” he added ominously.

Kids were not Doug’s thing. Kids were not supposed to be _Jem’s_ thing. They both made the appropriate noises at Shyne, Jem’s niece, but were in agreement that they did not want to be left in charge of her, ever. Of course, Shyne was two, and her mother Krista was alternately indulgent and inattentive, so it was not the most attractive time for the child. But Doug hadn’t imagined Jem adapting to children just because they were older.

The notion intrigued him.

“Sure, okay,” he agreed, standing from the booth.

Jem’s grin widened. “Okay. Meet me at 417 East Riverside. It’s apartment 3G if you fall behind.”

Doug did not fall behind, though parking his massive truck, aka the Avalanche, on the narrow streets always required some finesse. Jem waited on the brownstone’s steps for him. “So what’s the problem?” Doug asked as they went inside (Jem had his own key to the front door, he noted). “The sitter c—pped out or something?”

“The sitter’s a neighbor, so be polite,” Jem warned. The irony of the comment seemed lost on him. “But the one kid, Tony, he’s tough to handle sometimes and she freaks out.”

“Tough to handle?” Doug repeated. “He still needs a car seat! How tough can he be? Is he shanking her knees with his sippy cup?”

Jem shushed him even as he laughed. “No, he’s autistic,” he corrected easily, “so sometimes he has these fits or tantrums or whatever. Like he’s f-----g possessed by the devil.” He said this so casually, just as they reached the third-floor apartment, that Doug turned to stare at him again. Not just kids, but kids that required special handling? Doug just hoped that, miraculously, Jem really knew what he was doing, because the list of responsible parents he could call for emergency assistance was pretty short.

Jem let himself into the apartment—he had a key to that, too—and a wave of chaotic noise engulfed them—crying, shouting in Spanish, an inhuman howl. These apartments had d—n good soundproofing, at least.

Jem immediately took charge, speaking in Spanish to the older woman in the middle of the room (and when did Jem start speaking Spanish?). The crying was coming from a young girl who covered part of her face with her hands, and the animalistic wail from an even younger boy lying on the floor. When left alone he lay still, but when someone approached he started thrashing wildly. Jem approached anyway.

“Hey, come here, sweetheart,” Doug advised the girl, pulling her off to the side.

Jem scooped the boy up confidently, ignoring his kicks to his shins, and lightly restrained his flailing arms. “Hey, Tony, calm down,” he said in a soothing tone, which Doug hadn’t heard from his friend since they were kids tending an injured stray dog. “Calm down, Big T. You know who I am. That’s right, calm down.” Amazingly, this worked—the boy seemed to forget whatever he was upset about in favor of studying the tattoo on Jem’s forearm very closely.

“Yeah, he likes my tats, see,” Jem explained smugly. “That’s how he knows who I am, isn’t it, Big T?” He held the now-quiet boy aloft while conversing with the flustered older woman, then started to reach into his back pocket for his wallet. The move disrupted the boy’s petting of the tattoos, which set him off again.

“I got it,” Doug insisted, pulling out his own wallet. “How much?” He would pay a lot to make that noise stop.

“Two hundred,” Jem told him, quieting the boy down again, and Doug handed over the cash. The woman took it and left without another word.

“D—n, she’s got a racket going,” Doug guessed. “Two hundred for one night?”

“Hazard pay,” Jem pointed out dryly. “Oh, hey, Abby, this is my brother, Doug,” he introduced to the sniffling girl. “Just hang on a second—Dougie, sit down and hold him for me.”

Doug did not immediately comply. “Um, I don’t know, I’m not really—“

“You’ll be fine, don’t be a pansy,” Jem dismissed, and he sat the boy on Doug’s lap. “Now just keep your arm here, and he’ll look at your tat for a while.”

“That’s a neat trick,” Doug admitted, as the boy started tracing his arm tattoo with a finger.

Jem went over to attend to the girl. “Abby, you okay? C’mere.” He picked her up in a familiar way and set her on the edge of the counter. “Lemme take a look. Aw, you’re gonna have a shiner tomorrow,” he predicted, trying to make it sound like something to be proud of. “You tell everyone how you got into a bar fight, and you kicked the other girl’s a-s.” Abby giggled a little, wetly, at the absurdity of his suggestion, and he brought her a bag of frozen peas to put over her eye. “So what happened?”

“Mrs. Mercato told Tony it was time to go to bed, and she tried to take away his video game,” Abby reported in a hushed tone. She seemed very troubled by this. “And then I went to talk to him and he hit me. But it was an accident!” she added quickly. “He’s just had a bad day today.”

“You’re a good big sister, Abby,” Jem assured her. “You gotta be careful when he gets like that, though, ‘cause he don’t know how to stop.” She nodded soberly and Jem kissed her forehead. “Okay, go brush your teeth, alright?” She went off to the bathroom and Jem turned his gaze on Tony. It was so stern that Doug felt slightly chastened himself just catching it indirectly. He feared the effect was lost on its true recipient, though, since the boy didn’t look up from Doug’s arm.

Jem knelt down in front of him anyway. “Hey, Big T, you okay?” he questioned. Tony made no sign of reply. “Look, I know it’s tough for you, kid, but you can’t just start yelling and hitting people when you don’t get what you want.” Doug realized this was a poor moment to point out the irony of Jem saying that. “’Cause you see what happens? You end up hurting your Sissy. I know you didn’t mean to,” he added quickly, “but you did. And you got your mama all worried. You know she’s working hard to help you guys, and she can’t work hard when she’s worried about you.”

Doug waited a beat after this nice speech but then couldn’t stand it anymore. “Jem, how do you know he’s even listening to you?” As far as he could tell the kid hadn’t moved a muscle in response to Jem.

The other man was not dissuaded. “He’s listening,” Jem said confidently. “He’s always listening.” He plucked the boy off Doug’s lap, letting him put his arms around his neck. Immediately Tony began petting the Fighting Irish tattoo on the back of Jem’s neck. “Time for bed now, Big T,” he announced. “You ready for bed, Gabby Abby?” he asked the girl who hovered nearby. “It’s past your bedtime.”

The two children shared a bedroom; there were only two in the apartment, but their mother had put a folding screen up between their beds to offer them some privacy. It was only a temporary solution, but it wasn’t realistic for a single-mom waitress to be able to afford a three-bedroom apartment of the quality she wanted, in a decent part of the neighborhood. Jem and Mandy had plans to fix that soon, of course, but they couldn’t exactly share those plans with anyone.

He set Tony down on his bed and let him crawl under the covers. He needed his teddy bear and his cup on the nightstand just so, with his little handheld video game nearby. He wasn’t supposed to play it at night instead of sleeping; but he often reached for it first thing in the morning. The complex but predictable, controllable gameplay helped to calm and focus his overstimulated mind. Of course Mandy was working on fixing him at the source, because she _could_ , and it seemed cruel to make him live his life out of step with society when she had the power to change him; but it was a necessarily gradual process.

Jem walked around the screen and knelt by the side of Abby’s bed. She fussed with the bag of peas, not sure how or if she should sleep with it over her eye. “You okay there, sweetheart?” he asked her quietly. Special Tony got all the attention, he knew, and quiet, stalwart Abby could easily be forgotten. She shrugged a little in response. “It was scary, huh?” he said leadingly. “It’s scary when he does that.”

“Mrs. Mercato didn’t know what to do,” Abby confided nervously.

“Grown-ups don’t always know what to do,” Jem confirmed, regretfully. “She’s nice, though, isn’t she? Or not?”

“I guess,” Abby decided. “She doesn’t let us watch TV.”

“G-d, what do you do all afternoon?” Jem wondered intemperately. He loved TV, especially reality shows, the weirder the better.

“I do my homework, and then I draw or play,” Abby told him, “or help Tony with his homework, or help Mrs. Mercato make dinner.”

“Don’t do his homework _for_ him,” Jem warned, and she shook her head. “Well, it’s gonna get better, sweetheart,” he promised her. “You guys are still new here. And now you’ve got _me_ ,” he added, in a boastful tone designed to make her smile. “Okay? Go to sleep now.” He kissed her forehead, then stood and turned out the light in the room, shutting the door. If Tony needed anything in the night Abby would get up and tell someone.

Absently Jem picked up a couple of toys that hadn’t gotten put away in the confusion and left them on the counter where they wouldn’t be tripped over. “You want a tonic?” he offered Doug, heading to the fridge. “I’ll see if the game’s on but I gotta keep the volume down ‘cause of the kids.” There was no response and he looked up to see a very peculiar sort of expression on his friend’s face. “What?”

Doug seemed about to say something, then changed his mind. “You’re really good with those kids.” It was dangerously close to too much sincerity for them.

“Eh, common maturity level,” Jem dismissed, digging out a beer. “You stayin’ or goin’?”

“Sure, I’ll stay for a while,” Doug decided, and Jem handed him a Coke. Doug was curious what other domesticated wonders he might encounter yet this evening.

**

Jem had a feeling this was going to be the last straw for this school. Mandy shouldn’t be able to afford a fancy private school; but if it was better for the kids they would find a way to make it work. Actually affording things wasn’t a problem, of course, it was just the _realism_ of them affording it. Then again, Jem liked nice things and had nice things that he probably shouldn’t anyway, because what was the point of being a criminal if you still lived like any ordinary schmoe? And maybe paying for his girlfriend’s kids to go to a fancy private school was a socially-acceptable way of spending his ill-gotten gains—to his buddies, if not to the FBI.

The kids had to come first, Mandy felt, above even their need to play their roles. Thus why Jem was approaching the innocent brick building on a perfectly good day, getting slightly hivey with flashbacks to his own days of public education. He had always been too willful, too energetic for the overworked, underpaid teachers—“You can have this one, he’s a real gem,” one teacher would sarcastically tell the one in the next grade (or another one in the same grade, if Jem hadn’t managed to pass). Not his happiest memories, by any means. And to be honest he didn’t want Abby or Tony looking back and thinking the same thing.

Jem pulled open the heavy glass door and was immediately assailed with a plethora of signs, rules—and metal detectors. “What the h—l?” he muttered to himself, looking around.

“Hey, pal, can I help you?” asked a not-very-helpful-sounding voice, which got Jem’s back up, and he turned already preparing a retort.

Then he took a second look at the doughy, uniformed security guard. “Deke?” he asked in surprise.

The other man’s eyes widened as recognition dawned. “Jem Coughlin,” he identified. He seemed somewhat excited to encounter someone he knew from Charlestown. “Man, it’s good to see you. What are you doing here?”

“Pickin’ up my girlfriend’s kids,” Jem reported nonchalantly, slapping the man’s hand by way of Townie greeting. “What are _you_ doing here? You like a cop or something?”

“Private security,” Deke replied, his tone suggesting he knew it wasn’t all that exalted. “Makin’ sure the little pipsqueaks don’t shank each other or tag the walls.”

“Metal detectors?” Jem pointed out with disbelief. “It’s like I’m at the courthouse or something.”

“Eh, every once in a while we pick up some crazy,” Deke shrugged. “You know, world’s gone to h—l, can’t even be safe in the schoolyard anymore.”

“F-----g ridiculous,” Jem agreed. “So where do I go? Through here? This gonna set it off?” He indicated his large, garish cross on a chain.

“You got a piece on you?” Deke asked.

“No,” Jem replied, as though that should be obvious. “I left it in the car, so I could rob a liquor store on the way home.”

Deke took the sarcasm in stride. “Knife or anything? Just come through here,” he allowed when Jem indicated no, letting him bypass the metal detectors.

“Thanks, man,” Jem told him. “Hey, how’s your old man?”

“Well, with the emphysema they let him out of prison early, but I think the nursing home is worse,” Deke replied, matter-of-fact with an underlying resignation.

“I’m gonna send him something,” Jem promised, not idly. “I guess the Cubans are out, but what about some Johnny Walker?”

“Yeah, he’d like that,” Deke agreed.

“Okay. See you, man.”

“See ya. Oh, hey, you gotta check in at the principal’s office,” Deke advised. “That way.”

“Oh, thanks.” Jem turned towards the indicated door and pushed it open. It was a different setup from the principal’s offices at the schools he’d attended, but the effect of dread and oppression was the same.

The middle-aged secretary gave him a disapproving stare. “Can I help you?” she asked. He decided they must coach their employees on how to say that in the most discouraging way possible.

“Yeah, I’m lookin’ for the Newbury kids, Abby and Tony,” he replied, purposefully using his most obnoxious ‘gangster’ voice. “Where do you keep the delinquents penned up around here?”

Her expression soured further. “And you are?” she asked icily.

“James Coughlin.” Mandy had told them he would be coming in her stead.

“Do you have any ID, _Mr._ Coughlin?” she requested, as though expecting he wouldn’t.

“Uh, yeah,” Jem replied with some sarcasm, pulling out his wallet. “I’m not an illegal or anything.”

She took her time verifying his information, while he made sure to ‘casually’ push his sleeves up so she could glimpse some of his many tattoos. The school was by no means _above_ people like him; probably he knew a large percentage of the families in its district. But the subset of hood rats like him didn’t usually show up on school grounds—they let their more respectable-looking wives and girlfriends, the mothers of the students, handle that part. The fathers who showed up at school were the ones who placed a high value on education, and thus they also dressed and behaved appropriately.

Lennox was going to see that these kids got the best education possible; he knew it was a path to success in their world. But Jem was going to have a little fun shaking things up at the same time.

Just as the secretary reluctantly handed him back his ID, there was a skittering of footsteps behind him. “Jem!” a voice called excitedly, and he turned to see Abby emerge from a doorway. She started to run towards him, then quailed; the secretary was giving her a chastising look.

Jem had long been immune to such looks himself. He swept her up easily, even though she was a little old for that. “Hey, Gabby Abby,” he greeted. “What’s goin’ on? Where’s your brother?”

“He’s in there,” she said immediately, pointing towards the room she’d come from. “He’s really upset.” She sounded worried.

The room was little more than a glorified storage closet with a window and a couple of cots alongside the shelving. Tony lay on one of the cots, motionless like he was asleep, except his eyes weren’t fully closed and his breathing was erratic. Jem set Abby down. “Oh yeah, he’s real upset,” he agreed seriously, kneeling down beside the cot. “Big T. Tony. Come on, buddy, open your eyes.” Tony twitched a little but that was all. Words of patience were not Jem’s strong suit. “Stand back,” he warned Abby as he rose, and then he dared to reach down and pick the boy up, settling his limp form against his shoulder. “It’s okay, Tony, you’re safe now,” Jem assured him, rubbing his back. “We’re gonna go home soon.” The boy did not respond, which was somehow worse than if he’d started kicking and screaming.

Abby understood this. “Is he really sick?” she asked, her voice trembling.

Jem turned to her quickly, not wanting to neglect her, and hugged her to his side. “Nah, he’s gonna be fine,” he promised her. Lennox would _make_ him fine, if he didn’t snap out of this soon. “Hey, hey, tell me what happened, okay? Your mom said something about fighting?”

Abby looked suitably ashamed. She was a good kid who usually didn’t get into trouble, even if her grades weren’t the best; and she felt the humiliation of punishment keenly. “This other girl, a fifth grader, she was making fun of Tony,” she reported in a hushed tone. “And I told her to stop and tried to move him away. And then she pushed me down!” Jem’s eyebrows went up, already feeling a disproportionate amount of rage towards that fifth grader. The virtue of protecting his own had been instilled in him from an early age. “And then I got back up, and then the teacher came along and said we were _both_ in trouble for fighting.”

“But you weren’t fighting,” Jem protested in bemusement, wondering if she’d left something out. “Did you push her back or anything? Or push her away from Tony? Which _I_ think is fine to do, by the way,” he added militantly.

But Abby shook her head. “No, I didn’t touch her! But the teacher said the rule was that anyone involved in a fight gets in trouble. No matter who started it.”

“But it wasn’t a fight,” Jem persisted. “And, that’s a stupid g-----n rule.” Whatever school these kids ended up at, he was going to make sure they didn’t have any stupid rules like that, or teachers who busted students without paying attention to the facts. And common sense. And a code of behavior Jem could understand.

Maybe they would have to be homeschooled.

“Well anyway, why’s Tony here?” he went on, relieved to feel the boy stir more in his arms. “Does standing there while someone makes fun of you count as fighting, too?” he added sarcastically.

Abby shrugged a little. “He took my hand and wouldn’t let go! So they said he could stay here with me.” She seemed touched by her brother’s concern for her, even if she was worried about the state of distress it had brought him to.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Jem assured her again. “He’s comin’ around now. See, he’s rubbin’ my tattoo now.”

He turned slightly and Abby went around behind him, stretching up to get her brother’s attention. “Tony! Are you okay?” she asked him. Jem was not sure what, if any, response the boy made, but Abby seemed to find one. “Good, I was worried about you,” she went on. “That girl was really mean!”

“Yeah she was,” Jem agreed. “What happened to _her_?” It was probably best he not encounter this child right now.

“I don’t know,” Abby replied. “She went somewhere else.” Her tone suggested this was rather ominous.

“Well, let’s just get out of here,” Jem decided, shifting Tony around. “You got any stuff here? What do you need?”

“I have to go to my locker,” Abby reported. “And Tony’s locker. For our coats and our bookbags.”

“Okay, let’s do that,” Jem confirmed. “Lead the way. The escape hatch is that way.” Holding Abby’s hand he exited the small room and headed out the way he’d come.

“Did you talk to Mr. Winters yet?” the secretary asked sharply as they passed her desk.

“ _Who?_ ” Jem replied rudely.

“The principal,” she clarified. Jem had given her no reason to like him and she wasn’t a ‘benefit of the doubt’ kind of person.

Jem rolled his eyes and continued on his path. “I ain’t talkin’ to no principal,” he shot off, “about your stupid g-----n rules.” He thought the woman said something else to him, but he was out the door with the kids before it could register. “Which locker first?” he prompted Abby, who was remarkably well-composed about his cavalier attitude.

She steered him down the institutional beige hallway, its walls brightened by colorful signs featuring behavioral propaganda about obeying the rules, showing respect for others, and reading for fun. Jem wanted to rip them down and set them on fire, to watch the anthropomorphic animals and books shrivel up in flames.

Okay, maybe that reaction was a little extreme; but their nonsensical rules had gotten Abby and Tony suspended for the rest of the day. Whatever lip-service they paid to ‘showing respect for others’ clearly hadn’t sunk into the mind of a certain fifth grader; and Abby had a learning disability. Okay, that wasn’t the school’s fault and according to Mandy they had a decent supplemental program for her—but Abby loved _listening_ to stories, it must be awful to constantly have books shoved in her face that she literally _could not_ read, strengthening her feelings of insecurity further.

Jem had not been a big reader himself at her age.

Or any age, until he was basically grown and realized the power and history he had. His parents had _not_ been the type to value education and he really didn’t know if he’d picked up his reluctance from them or if there had really been something amiss in his young brain. Then one day he’d picked up a book in the prison library and started reading, so much more easily than it had ever come to him before, and with so much usefulness.

He didn’t expect the exact same thing to happen to Abby, of course. Although maybe it would be close, since Mandy was working on fixing her as well, slowly but surely.

They stopped at a bank of lockers and Abby carefully opened one. Tony made a noise and it echoed in the empty hall; Abby shushed him as a lecturing teacher glanced over through her open classroom door. Well, kids made noise, deal with it, was Jem’s attitude. He was just about done with this place.

“Take all your stuff,” he told Abby. He conceded to trying to keep his voice down. “Leave the textbooks.”

“I have homework,” she pointed out in alarm.

“Pretend you ain’t comin’ back here, ever,” Jem instructed. “Forget the homework. But don’t leave anything of yours behind.” She obeyed his directions, even if they didn’t make much sense to her. “Where’s Tony’s locker?”

“It’s around the corner by the special classroom,” Abby informed him knowledgeably. It was her task—self-appointed—to make sure Tony made it to and from his locker properly every school day.

“Well, let’s go get his stuff too,” Jem directed, carting them along.

“Why should we pretend we aren’t coming back?” Abby asked worriedly.

“Your mom wants a special weekend with you,” Jem fibbed effortlessly. “No homework. It’ll be okay.” Well, it wasn’t exactly a fib; wasn’t like Mandy _didn’t_ want time with the kids. Jem was pretty sure she intended to switch their school, but he didn’t want to tell them that yet, prompting a bunch of questions he couldn’t answer. Not a very Jem-like prudence, actually, but he tended to take liberties with the character where the kids were concerned.

For example, he wasn’t sure if a guy like Jem Coughlin would walk out in public carrying a _Toy Story_ backpack. But if he _would_ , he would do it with utter confidence, and woe to anyone who tried to mock him for it. Same with the car seats Doug had found so amusing—only Doug could get away with those smirks, no one else.

“You in okay, Big T?” he asked Tony as he settled him into the car finally. “Abby?”

“I’m okay,” she assured him. Then she reached over and straightened Tony’s collar a bit. Jem tried not to smile. “Where are we going now?” she wanted to know. “Are we going home? I don’t know if Mrs. Mercato will be able to watch us now…” Not that she really looked forward to being watched by Mrs. Mercato.

“Nah, _I’m_ gonna watch you,” Jem told her, squealing the tires slightly as he pulled away from the school. “That’ll be cool, right? How about we get some ice cream? You want some ice cream, Big T?” He glanced in the rearview mirror to see Tony absorbed in his video game, happily oblivious to the overstimulating world.

“Tony wants a caramel sundae,” Abby reported authoritatively. “But I want hot fudge. Please.”

“We can swing those,” Jem promised. He turned into a little neighborhood place, fighting for its market in a sea of Dairy Queens and Culvers, and a few minutes later they were all sitting at a picnic table with their ice cream before them.

“Tony, it’s time to eat,” Abby informed him, trying to take away the game. He gripped it tighter and made a noise of protest, however.

“Tony,” Jem said sternly, and he finally gave up the game, albeit without really acknowledging either of them. With messy, jerky movements he began to eat his ice cream. It was hard to tell that he preferred the caramel over the hot fudge, but he ate it.


End file.
